


Thomas and Elisha

by ThisCat



Series: Transcendence AU [6]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Awkwardness, F/M, People Being Dicks, Romance, but it all works out in the end, dark secrets, emotional distress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 03:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7785514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisCat/pseuds/ThisCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of two people getting to know each other, both in spite of and because of a wide array of circumstances, including but not limited to demons, undead cars, murder, and less than helpful friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Look for answers

**Author's Note:**

> First of all I want to thank [Dementor SSC](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dementor_ssc) also known as [flying-guinea-pig](http://flying-guinea-pig.tumblr.com/) for letting me play with her characters like this, and for beta reading for me. Thank you, you're the best.
> 
> Second, I just want to wonder out loud how something that was originally supposed to be a medium to long one shot somehow ended up with 17k words. I blame the characters. They sat down in my head and refused to have themselves made small.
> 
> Third, I hope you enjoy.

 “You have a nice time on your trip, then.”

The man nodded a thanks and walked out the door, and Elisha sat down with a heavy breath. Last customer today. Finally. Around her, the rest of her co-workers seemed to be of about the same mind.

Working in the city was definitely different from working in town. The salon was bigger, for one. It was busier, more crowded, much more hectic. It was more important to be good here. Back in town, there had only been one hairdressing salon, but out here, if someone was unhappy with the service, they could just go somewhere else, so they had to be the best. They had to be good, they had to be quick, they had to be friendly, and organized, and neat. It was hard work from beginning to end, and Elisha loved it. If she did well here, she could go far, and she was doing well.

She got up and helped with the cleaning-up. She liked her co-workers too, which was important. Nothing was quite as good for the motivation as friends to chat with in-between the work, and sure, it was less than half a year since she got the job here, but she fit in nicely. She could already speak freely with most of them.

While the salon was technically within city limits, it was not in the most drastically urbanized of areas, meaning there was an actual parking lot for employees and customers out back. For Elisha, this meant that she could easily drive to work, which was nice. For her co-workers, it meant that they had many opportunities to question Elisha’s choice of transport.

“Okay, I don’t get it,” Sylvi said as they walked out to their respective cars. “It’s not like you don’t know anything about cars, I heard you keep a long, engaged conversation on the subject latest yesterday morning. And it’s not like you don’t care about appearances, because honestly.” She gestured to Elisha’s carefully planned outfit and immaculate makeup. “So what’s up with that?” She gestured to The Car.

The Car, unlike its owner, had heard the word ‘immaculate’ once, but seemed to have shrugged it off along with most breakable parts and a large portion of the roof rack. The Car thought accessorizing meant another hex slapped on a window, or possibly the process of turning other cars into accessories. The Car was to appearances what a criminal record was to a chance of working at a day-care.

Elisha sighed.

“It’s an antique,” she said.

“An antique,” Sylvi repeated, inserting as much doubt into her voice as humanly possible. “Sure. Elisha, it’s a wreck.”

“And it runs like a dream,” she answered. “I like it, and I won’t have anyone dissing it, okay?”

Sylvi rolled her eyes, but it was with a smile and she kept quiet. Elisha climbed into The Car and turned the ignition, which would have drowned out any speech anyways, and drove home.

“You’re unusually quiet today,” she remarked on the way.

The Car, of course, did not answer, but she knew it was listening.

“It wasn’t what she said, was it? I mean, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before.”

Still no reply.

“Wait,” she said, “was it because she said I’ve been talking about cars?”

A particularly surly growl from the engine confirmed her suspicions. To anyone else, it would have sounded like just another splutter in the cacophony that was The Car, but Elisha knew this thing now. She knew what meant what. She sighed.

“Baby, you know it’s not like that,” she said. “I won’t deny it, I like looking at sports cars, I wouldn’t mind going for a ride in a brand new Frigga 360, and I enjoy talking about expensive vehicles, but _you’re_ the one I love, okay? Those things are just… cars. You’re my friend.”

She patted the dashboard reassuringly, and soon enough The Car was back to its normal level of noise. It pissed off the neighbours, but at least The Car was only this loud while she was driving, which was better than many other dogs. The contented roaring brought a smile to her face.

She parked The Car and walked up to her apartment. She really did love the old thing. After everything it had gotten her out of, the gods only knew where she would be without it. She was possibly fonder of it than of anything else in her life at the moment.

Though, when she thought about it, she still knew very little about it.

The mechanic back in town recognized it as the undead car of legend, roaming the roads, and off-roads, of North America, and sometimes other places, but he knew practically nothing about where it actually came from. In fact, from the way he spoke, very few people knew where it came from. Possibly no one.

But… that was not true, was it?

She paused in the middle of heating up some leftovers from yesterday for dinner. She bit her lip and furrowed her brows.

No… no, that was definitely not true.

She _had_ met someone who knew her car once, but at the time, she had been too tired and freaked out to grab the chance to ask him questions.

What was his name again? Tyrone? She really should see if she could track that guy down, clear some things up.

Then again, how? How much did she actually know about him? His first name, which, yes, a quick search revealed that at least sixty Tyrones lived in the city alone. His general appearance, which was honestly too unremarkable to go on. His, if what he said was true, improbable age, though she doubted he was a vampire, and whatever else he was, she was unlikely to find it in the phone registry.

Her food finished heating up and she sat down to eat, still pondering the issue.

The other guy might be easier to track, when she thought about it. Sure, she only had a common first name for him too, but his car should be simple enough to find. Rainbow-coloured ancient trucks were the kind of thing people remembered.

Alright then, she thought, time to start asking around.

\---

Whatever she told herself, it took her until the weekend before she could really get started on things. None of her co-workers could remember seeing a truck like the one she described, and while she could theoretically start asking her clients, that would be bad form.

Instead, she waited until her Saturday off, at which time she had booked a visit to a car mechanic. After all, if you want to know about cars, you go to those who do cars for a living.

The boys in the garage gaped at her as she rolled into their workshop with a roar. They kept gaping as she stepped out of The Car and smiled sweetly at them.

“Holy shit,” one of them said. “Is that…?”

“Can’t be,” said the other, an older-looking guy.

“But look at it!”

“I am looking.”

“Excuse me?” Elisha said, and the two guys’ heads swivelled towards her in perfect synchrony.

“Oh, right,” the older one said. “You’re Miss McKenzie?”

“Yes, I am. I gather you’re interested in my car?”

The younger guy answered, “It’s- It’s not actually the-”

“-legendary sentient wreck of North America?” she finished. “Yes, I’m pretty sure it is.”

After that followed a long, enthusiastic conversation during which she charmed her way into a full new set of tires for a fraction of the normal prize, got a better estimation of The Car’s age, and learned a few neat tricks of car mechanics. Eventually, she also asked about the rainbow truck.

“Oh yeah,” the younger guy said. “I think I’ve seen that thing around. Doesn’t that have stories about it too? I think I heard it was a demon or something.”

Elisha giggled at that.

“Well, from what I caught, you’re not wrong, but you’re not completely right either.”

“What,” he smiled. “Are you going for some legendary sentient car reunion or something?”

“Hehe, no. I really just need to find him. You wouldn’t know how, would you?”

The younger guy shook his head, but the older one hummed thoughtfully.

“Actually,” he said, “I have a friend at another shop who said something about something like that. He had that monster of a truck in for a security inspection I think. I don’t know how to find the owner, but he might. I will warn you, though, that he is one of the strangest men I have ever met.”

Elisha smiled and thanked him when he gave her the address, she paid for their time and work, The Car purred contently on its new tires, and then they set off in search of the other shop, all the way on the other side of the city.

\---

She had to double check the name of the place before she was sure it was the right one. It seemed to be located in a normal, if unusually large, garage. Around the property stood several cars in various stages of dismantlement, and a few that had been un-dismantled in ways cars should not be put together. The logo above the garage door was nearly too intricate to read, and despite featuring a couple of stylized cars, it managed to look more like the logo of a washed-out tourist trap than a car shop. There were also, according to the cardboard signs hanging around, at least three sales going on. On close examination of the small print, however, each sale applied only to such a specific collection of conditions, none of them were likely to come up any time soon.

Elisha decided to park The Car further down the street and walk up on her own.

Inside the garage, there seemed to be an actual gift shop. It did sell the normal array of items one found in such workshops, like wheel bolts and motor oil, but it also seemed to keep keyrings, T-shirts, car-themed chemistry sets, an entire shelf of dashboard decorations, and, according to one half-hidden sign, pugs. Perfectly Legal pugs, at that.

The man who met her there matched his shop well, approaching her with open arms and a voice full of enthusiasm. She tightened her grip on her purse, but despite his used car salesman-grin, the man kept a respectful distance.

“Hello, customer,” he said. “I see you haven’t brought your car, but I’m sure there are still any number of things here to catch your fancy. So what do you say? What transactions can old Manfredi help you with today?”

“Actually,” she said, “I was wondering if I could ask you some questions?”

The look on his face would not have fallen faster if she actually had hit him with the purse. His hands, which had been held out to present his merchandise, pulled in to form a defensive gesture.

“Hey, if this is about the dogs, I have all the necessary licenses back in-”

“It’s not about the dogs,” she said. She had to fight a smile. And how exactly had this man managed to stay clear of the police? “I’m sure the dogs are perfectly in order. I’m here about a car.”

Manfredi did not look reassured.

“Look, the hypersonic turbomajig? That’s all my brother, okay, I don’t know anything about the stuff he gets up to.”

“It’s not about that either,” she said. “I couldn’t care less about your illicit activities, I promise.”

“What’re you talking about? Who said anything about anything ‘illicit’? Nothing like that going on here.”

“Of course not. But all I want to know is about a car you had in for a security inspection a while ago.”

“Ah,” he said. His hands dropped back out of their defensive position, and a hint of the salesman-smile reappeared on his face. “Well, you know, my memory isn’t the best…”

She sighed. Honestly. Manfredi gestured subtly at his shelves of merch, and she considered it.

“You know, I was just thinking I needed a can of motor oil,” she said, “but yours looks so expensive.”

He grabbed a can of motor oil and placed it on the counter. “Eh, you’re cute,” he said. “How about half price?”

It was still overpriced at half price. It was more than overpriced, but she pulled out her wallet.

“Sounds good to me,” she said. “And I really think you’ll remember this particular car.”

The description of the murderous truck was somewhat vague, but it had the advantage of not really fitting anything else either. Manfredi’s face lit up in recognition as she spoke.

“Oh,” he said, “the Rainbow Basher.”

She vaguely remembered someone calling it that the first time she saw it, so she nodded. He continued.

“Oh yeah, She was here. She’s a beast, isn’t she? She passed the inspection with flying colours of course, don’t think a tank could put a dent in that lady, though I was almost a little worried about letting her back on the road. If her driver hadn’t been a certified demonologist, I never would’a done it, I swear.”

Really? Huh, that actually made a bit of sense. Interesting.

“You don’t think you could tell me how to contact him, do you?” she asked.

“Ehhh,” he said, dragging the sound out like he was considering it. “I’m not sure if I can give you that information, sweetie. Can’t just go around telling anyone where my customers live, can I?”

“Of course not,” she said. “Well, thank you for your help anyways, mister Manfredi, and good luck with the dogs.”

He waved after her as she left. Just as she walked out of the driveway, one of the amalgam cars she had noticed on her way in seemingly fell out of the sky and shattered against the ground. After a few seconds, a voice from behind the garage shouted, “I knew that was gonna happen!”

That must have been the brother, then.

Elisha walked faster.

She sat down in the driver’s seat of The Car, but she did not turn the ignition just yet. Instead, she pulled out her phone from her purse.

“Alright,” she muttered to herself, “time to put those search engines to good use.”

There were about three hundred people in the city named Thomas. Of those, about fifty were within the right age brackets. Of those, exactly one had graduated university with a degree in demonology.

“Nice to meet you, Thomas Strange.”

\---

With both his address and phone number in front of her, contacting Thomas should be remarkably easy. She could just call him, ask about his friend and then with any luck only have to worry about her real goal from then on.

Then again, he might not want to give out information about a friend to a random stranger on the phone. She had better do this face-to-face, which would be harder to manage. It might be a little too weird to just show up at his door someday, though.

She spent the rest of the evening considering her options, and there was a little voice in the back of her head saying she was dragging it out. For all she wanted to know the answers to questions only he could answer, Tyrone had unnerved her. She was not too eager to meet him again.

Sunday was booked for a girls’ night out with Sylvi and a few other friends, so she put it out of her mind. Once the next week started up, the salon was as busy as it had ever been. Elisha had too much work to do to worry about cars or questions or elusive demonologists. She worked late most days, and on the shorter ones, she came home and took a look at the phone number written in her notes, and decided to leave it for tomorrow, some other day, maybe next weekend. Now, she needed a break. And so, nothing happened on that front for the next few days.

On Thursday, she was almost too tired to think by the time she closed the car door behind her. The day had been one of the most hectic ones of her life and she was glad it was over. Instead of having to worry about dinner after all that, she elected to stop by a diner on her way home, and grab a bite to eat and a large coffee.

She sat down at the diner positioned so that she could watch people passing by on the way to the counter. Not for any particular reason, she just ended up that way, but it did give her a good enough view to vaguely recognize him when he came in.

It took her a few seconds to realize what she had seen, but once she did, she froze.

No. There was no way, was there?

Had he just walked right past her nose after all that effort she spent looking for him?

She put her food down and got up in an attempt to get a better look at him.

That… really looked like him. In fact, she was about 90% sure it _was_ him. Huh. Well, might as well ask, then. She started walking towards him.

“Thomas?” she said, and he jumped at her voice and turned around. Yup, definitely him, no doubt about it. “Thomas Strange, really? I didn’t expect to meet you here.”

“Uh,” he said. “Do I know you?”

“Not really,” she said, “but we met once. Your-” Realization hit her. Her smile fell off her face. Her next words came out in a rush. “Did you park your car outside?”

“Oh shit,” he said, as he remembered where they had met before, and then they both turned towards the door and started running.

\---

Thomas dreaded what he would see when he pushed the door of the diner open, but at least he was not surprised to be met by the sight of the Rainbow Basher growling threats at another car. Again.

He paused for a few seconds in bewilderment, at a loss for what to do. The little blonde, what was her name again? Elise? Something like that. She was faster than him, getting between the cars and holding her hands up for them to stop before he had even taken two steps away from the door. After a moment’s thought, he walked over to her.

“Alright,” he said, directing a question at the few bystanders in the parking lot, “did anyone see what happened here?”

The bystanders all eyed the cars warily before one of them stepped forward.

“Um, well,” she said. “ _That_ car,” she indicated the rusted wreck on the left, “started up on its own and went towards the _other_ car,” indicating the Basher on the right, “and then that one started up as well, and I think it scared the first one because it freaked out and backed into a lamppost, and that’s when you two came running out.”

“Thank you,” he said, and she walked back to a safer distance.

The girl, no really, what was her name? He tried to remember, but it was half a year since they met the first time on that road trip, and he had been distracted at the time. The girl looked from one car to the other a few times before she patted the hood of her own.

“Hey, hey shh,” she said, sounding like she was calming down some big animal. “You should’ve learned by now not to play with the big girls unless you can beat them. You go back to your spot and settle down, okay? There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll take care of this. It’s gonna be okay.”

She patted the car on the hood a few more times, and then it drove off and parked itself neatly in an empty spot. She turned around to face the Rainbow Basher. Stare down, was probably a better phrase to use. With her hands at her sides, her legs apart, her chin raised and her jaw set, she made it perfectly clear what she was thinking.

“And _you_ ,” she said. “What exactly did you think you were doing?”

The Rainbow Basher growled in confusion.

Thomas had seen people handle the Basher before. She listened to Tyrone, of course. Well, at least sometimes, and she listened to him too if she was in the mood, and Eddy had this uncanny ability to make her behave if she was acting up too bad, but this?

The girl, whatever her name was, was ranting as if the truck was a misbehaving child. Somewhere between “Is this any way for a proper truck to behave? Act your age already!” and “If you dare scare my car for no reason again, I swear your reputation won’t live to regret it,” the Basher started shrinking back, and once the barrage let up, she practically fled back to her spot.

The girl huffed, took a deep breath, and turned towards the diner.

“I need the rest of my coffee,” she said.

Thomas agreed wholeheartedly, and followed her in with a last glance at the two, once again perfectly docile, cars.

She gestured for him to sit down by her table, and once he actually paid for his order, he did.

“Well,” he said. “That was… impressive.”

The girl smiled over her coffee. “That was me unloading all my frustrations on a truck. It’s not a big deal.”

He raised his eyebrows. “No really, I’m impressed. I’ve never seen anyone make her back down like that before.”

The girl smiled a little wider. Thomas held out his hand. “Um,” he said, “I’m afraid I don’t remember your name?”

She took his hand in her own and shook it. “Elisha,” she said, “Elisha McKenzie. It’s nice to meet you again, Thomas.”

“And you. I didn’t know you lived around here?”

She shrugged. “You ran into me while I was in the process of moving here, actually. I haven’t had the time to explore the city properly yet.”

“And I don’t really think we move in the same circles, anyways,” he said, taking in her general appearance.

She laughed. “I guess not, unless you’re talking about cars.”

“Yeah. Can’t be that many people with angry, sentient cars around, can there?”

“I know you’re the only one I’ve met. There’s just no one else who understands. My friends all think I’m crazy for keeping it.”

“God, tell me about it. You know the Basher gets summoned sometimes? Like, actual demonic summoning. Can be very annoying, let me tell you.”

“Really? At least I don’t have to deal with that…”

They talked for a long time.

Thomas could talk to his friends about the Basher, of course, but it turned out there was nothing quite like talking to someone who understood at this level. Someone who had similar stories, who understood what it felt like to have car maintenance be a bonding experience, and who knew what it felt like to not always be in complete control of your own driving. She could empathize where others could only sympathize, and he found he really liked that. He only realized for how long they had been talking when he happened to glance at his watch, at which point he hit his knee on the table in his hurry to get up.

“Ah, shit,” he said, “I should’ve been back at the lab half an hour ago!”

“Wait!” she said before he could run, “Let me give you my number.”

He handed her his phone, which had three missed calls how had he let that happen, and stood fidgeting while she entered her number.

On his way back to the university, Thomas was glad the Basher could drive safely on her own, because he found he could not take his eyes off his phone. Somehow, in the rush to get going, he had missed the fact that a very cute and interesting girl had given him her number. That she had asked to give him her number, no prompting necessary. That, in fact, she really wanted him to have her number. He had also missed the fact that she knew his name, and he had no idea how.

No really, how had she known? And why did that matter less to him than the little string of numbers on his screen? He felt he really needed to do something with those numbers, and in a burst of spontaneity, he did.

\---

On the other side of the city, Elisha banged her head on the wheel of The Car. An hour. Nearly two. She spoke to him for all that time, and not once did she remember to ask the question she had originally sought him out to ask. God dammit.

Well, nothing else to it, then. She would have to give him a call. And tell him the only reason she wanted to talk to him in the first place was because of his friend. Double dammit.

She was still working herself up to having that conversation when her phone buzzed with a text message. Apparently, he got there first.

It read, _[Are you free on Saturday? I have a couple tickets to_ Revenge of Marglath _, and my friend couldn’t come after all.]_

Huh, interesting. All she really knew about the movie in question was that it was a newly made blockbuster action film, the third in a series and starring an array of very expensive actors. There were posters of it everywhere, and she was reasonably sure it featured exploding planets. Very much not her usual fare. She usually went for romance movies.

Her phone buzzed again.

_[Not that you have to or anything. I just happened to think of it is all.]_

She was free that weekend. After all, she had planned to spend it trying to contact him. And this way, she would get a chance to bring up meeting his friend without sounding like a dick. Plus, no movie starring Jason DeMalkovich in a leading role could be all that bad.

_[that sounds lovely_ _:)_ _]_ she texted back. _[when do we meet]_


	2. Look for love

Thomas looked as if he had attempted to dress up at least a little today. He had pulled a brush through his hair, and put on a shirt. He was also looking in the opposite direction of where Elisha came from, which gave her a chance to study him before he noticed her.

He stood up straight with his arms folded across his chest. It could have looked cool and confident, but with the way he pulled his shoulders up and tapped his foot, he mostly looked nervous. As she watched him, she saw him glance at his watch at least twice.

“Have you been waiting long?” she asked as she approached.

He relaxed when he spotted her, and a smile lit up his face. It was a rather nice smile to have directed at her, when she thought about it. It was all nice and open and easy. Honest, might be the word she was looking for.

“Not at all,” he said. “I just thought…” he gestured in the direction he had been looking, towards the closest parking lot, she realized.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I parked a little way away. Figured we could avoid another incident.”

He nodded in understanding. “Right, yeah. That was smart.”

He fidgeted in place, and a virtual aura of nervous awkwardness seemed to hang around him.

“You look good,” she said. The comment caught him by surprise.

“Thanks,” he smiled again, and instinctively pulled a hand through his hair, messing it up further. Then he remembered to add, “You look great.”

“Thank you,” she said, and then she nodded in the direction of the entrance door. “Movie?”

“Right.”

The awkwardness abated a little as they walked up the steps to the cinema, but only a little.

“So, uh,” he said, “you haven’t seen this movie before or anything, have you?”

“No,” she answered. “It’s not the kind of movie I usually watch. Actually, I haven’t seen any of the Space Exploder Team films.”

Thomas groaned, and skewed his eyes shut in a grimace.

“Oh god, and I didn’t even ask. I was just, ‘oh, everyone likes those, right?’ but of course it’s not your kind of movie I am so sorry. I don’t think you _have_ to have seen the others to get this one? Just ask me if there’s anything confusing you and we can just leave if you’re not enjoying yourself, okay? I am so, so sorry”

“Thomas!” she grabbed onto his wrist to stop him rambling. “It’s alright. It’s just a movie. I could’ve said no when you suggested it.”

He got an odd look in his eyes when he looked at her hand, but he took a deep breath and calmed down a little.

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry about freaking out, I just-” he gave her a slanted smile, “I want you to have a good time, is all.”

She smiled back and squeezed the wrist she still had not let go of.

“I think it’s gonna be nice,” she said.

It _was_ nice, she thought later. Yes, there were a few things that confused her, and she could have gone without some of the gratuitous explosions, but the special effects were impressive, the acting was honestly fun, (and the actors were pretty too,) and every once in a while, she would look over at Thomas, and he would be explaining something to her in a low voice, or he would just be watching the movie, completely, enthusiastically engrossed in the drama on the screen. It was nice, surprisingly nice, to watch Thomas watch the movie.

Action movies were still not her thing, but she thought she might enjoy watching them with him.

\---

He had been looking forward to this movie for a while, following the series faithfully as he was, and it did not disappoint. Okay, he had felt like a bit of an idiot when he remembered that not everyone was as much as a nerd about movies as he was, but Elisha did not seem disappointed either. In fact, she really looked like she had enjoyed it.

“That was great,” she said, bouncing beside him on their way out.

Actually bouncing. He could not remember her bouncing the first few times they had met. It had an interesting effect on her, and not just on her shapes, though she did have those and he should really try harder to keep his eyes off them. She tended to stride, normally, pass through anywhere as if there could be nowhere else she belonged more. The bouncing took a measure of that flair and turned it into cute.

“Yeah, you think so?” he said.

“I do,” she said. “I expected the explosions and those things, but that was actually really dramatic. I think I’ll have to watch the rest of them now.”

“Well, they’re pretty easy to find on the internet,” he said. _And I have a copy of every single one at home,_ he thought. He could ask her to come watch them with him, but, no. That would be weird. Weirder. God. They had barely met.

“I’ll put it on my list, then,” she said. They stopped at the corner outside the cinema. “Did you have anything else in mind for tonight?” she asked.

“Er, well,” he said, the nervousness from earlier returning, if with only a fraction of its strength. “If you’re hungry, I know this Italian place down the street that’s pretty good?”

“That sounds great,” she said.

The sun was on its way down at this point, and somehow he found the light of the sunset fitting to the mood. It certainly did nothing bad for Elisha. As they walked, some of the bounce fell out of her step in favour of her usual confidence, and he had no idea which one he thought suited her better.

She was, honestly, very pretty. How he had ended up on something very much like a movie date with her might have to be a mystery for the ages. Then again, she did probably not think of it as a date. He was probably just being weird, again.

God, why did he always have to be so- oh. They were at the restaurant already.

\---

They had a table by the window, tucked away in a corner. Where they sat, they had a great view of the sunset, without being bothered too much by the rest of the patrons. It was practically the perfect place.

Thomas had been a little flustered to reveal that he had already reserved a table, but then again, ‘a little flustered’ was a good description of him in general right now. She had a feeling he had never been at a proper restaurant with a girl before.

He grew more nervous at they talked, as well. Eventually, they ran out of things to say about the movie. At least, she ran out of things to say. She suspected he could spend hours talking about it if his mind was in on it. They ordered a pizza to share and the silence took on an awkward colour.

“So…” he said, eventually. “What do you do, anyways?”

“I’m a hairdresser,” she said. “I work at _Les Ciseaux_ , now, but I’m hoping to open my own place at some point.”

“Huh, that’s pretty cool,” he said, and he almost looked like he meant it. “Wait, isn’t that that super-fancy place?”

She shrugged. “I guess. It is definitely nice. And you? What do you do?”

Of course, she already knew the answer, but it hit her that letting him know exactly how much she knew about him might creep him out just a little.

He scratched his head and averted his eyes. “Uh, well,” he said. “I’m about half a year from getting my PhD. In… demonology.”

Her eyes widened. She had not known about the PhD.

“Wow,” she said. “You’re really smart, aren’t you?”

He blushed in response and rubbed his neck, but he also sighed in relief.

“I guess. You… you don’t think it’s weird, then?”

Just then, their pizza arrived and distracted them both. For the next few minutes, they both mostly focused on the difference between frozen pizza and restaurant pizza.

“Sorry, you were saying?” Elisha said as she picked up her second slice. “What’s weird?”

“Demonology,” he replied, already halfway through his. “I don’t know. I tend to get some weird looks for it. Most people seem to think we’re all creepy demon worshippers.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I already know your car is demonic, so I guess it made sense to me. I don’t know the stereotypes, though. I can barely tell apart runes and arrays. I know nothing about magic.”

He gaped at her, pizza slice forgotten in his hand. “Runes and…”

“Completely off track, I’m sure. Like I said…”

“Yeah,” he said, then he did a one-shouldered shrug. “Fair enough, I guess. I know nothing about hair.”

She gave his messy mop a pointed look. “I noticed.”

He decided to hide his blushing behind the pizza this time.

\---

Despite the blushing, Thomas relaxed after that. It took very little time before conversation picked up again, and it travelled freely.

It turned out they had more than just their cars in common. While they shared few hobbies and interests, and their social circles touched only very peripherally if at all, they had many of the same values. Thomas never quite stopped being the guy who spent hours studying each day, and Elisha was a hard worker if there had ever been one. They both knew to appreciate good friends in their lives, and they both had a somewhat lax relationship with driving regulations, though that last one might have more to do with the cars again.

They ordered dessert.

Thomas talked about his relationship with his parents. Elisha said enough about hers to make it clear that it was basically non-existent. She talked about her uncle B as well, just to make it clear that she had never been completely alone, but she left it at that on the subject of family. He talked about his somewhat mediocre gaming history. She told the story of her one, disastrous attempt at drama class.

They approached the end of their desserts, and the conversation fizzled out again.

Thomas started fidgeting again. Two times, he opened his mouth and drew a breath to say something, but thought better of it. It was almost amusing just to watch him.

“What?” she asked the third time he did it.

“Ah,” he said. “Um.” He breathed out and looked up at her. “I really enjoy talking to you. And, I think you seem like a pretty great person and I’d like to spend a lot more time with you if I can. And I know I’m not very good at this, but…”

He trailed off. She got the gist of it, though.

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” she asked.

He drew another deep breath. “Yeah,” he said.

Sheesh, he was not exactly the pinnacle of confidence, was he? She watched him fidget uncomfortably. The radiance of nervousness was back in full force, and he made no sign at all that he expected her to say yes. It was hard to understand how he could ever attract anyone acting like that.

Then again.

Charlie had been confident.

Thomas, intelligent, nerdy, carelessly dressed, and apparently composed of awkwardness as he was, was the polar opposite of most of the guys she had previously dated. As far as she could remember, none of them had been willing to hear her talk about interests they did not share, and few of them had ever been this interesting to listen to. No, Thomas did not send her heart racing the way Charlie had, but once she thought about it, really thought about it, did that have to mean anything bad? Or, possibly, did it mean the exact opposite?

“I’m sorry.” Thomas looked away with a pained expression. “I’m being dumb again. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I’m perfectly alright with just being friends, so-”

“Thomas!” she cut him off. “You’re not being dumb. Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend.”

He blinked at her.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

And then he smiled.

And maybe her heart did not throw sparks at the merest mention of his name, but that open, honest smile still pulled on something warm and solid in her, and she smiled back, and that was nice.

\---

He had a girlfriend.

_He_ had a _girlfriend_.

His friends would never believe him.

Hell, with his track record, they would have good reason not to believe him.

He hardly believed it himself.

He offered to walk her back to her car, and she held his hand as they walked. It made them look like a couple. And they were a couple. They were together, him and her, officially. Honestly, all those unsuccessful dates, and then she walked right up to him out of nowhere.

Why was that, anyways?

“You know,” he said. “I never asked you how you knew my name.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. All of a sudden, she looked embarrassed. “I forgot about that. Again.” She sighed. “I didn’t actually talk to you because I wanted to talk to _you_.”

“Oh,” he said. Well, why had he ever expected as much?

“I have enjoyed talking to you. I mean,” she nodded at their intertwined hands, “but originally, that’s not why I was looking for you. And you weren’t too easy to find, either.”

She explained. He mostly just listened.

“…well, I’m not sure if ‘car mechanic’ is quite the right word for him, but I did find him.”

“No,” he shot in. “Those two are pretty weird, but they’re surprisingly good at their job, and they don’t ask too many questions.”

“That’s true,” she said. “I’d consider going there myself if they weren’t so overpriced. How did you find them, anyways?”

“A friend introduced me. Did he really tell you my name, though?”

“Oh no, he wouldn’t give me that, but he did let it slip that you were a demonologist…”

They stood by the door of The Car by the time she finished talking.

“…so, I only talked to you in the first place because I need to talk to your friend.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s as good a way to meet as any other, I suppose.”

“I know. It’s just a little weird.”

“It _is_ a little weird,” he conceded. “But it’s not like I’m a stranger to weird things. At least you’re not a stalker or anything.”

She laughed at that. “Yes. It can always be worse, I suppose.”

Thomas shoved his hands in his pockets. After a little while he said, “You know, we have a poker night next Friday, not this one, but in two weeks. I could introduce you to my friends, and you can talk to whoever you want.”

“That sounds great,” she said.

“Great,” he said.

“I think we should have another date before then, though.”

“I think you’re right.”

They took their time working out their schedules. It was late, and dark, and they stood alone in an empty parking garage, but neither of them was in any hurry.  Once they finished planning their next meeting, she smiled up at him.

“You’re too tall,” she said.

“I am not,” he said. “I’m perfectly normal height. You’re just, you know, uh.”

She rolled her eyes. “Alright. I’m too short, then. Either way you’re too much taller than me. Come here.”

After a second of swallowing his heart back to his chest where it belonged, he leaned in for a kiss.

The Car suddenly emitted a loud, foghorn-like honking sound.

Elisha shrieked in surprise and banged her forehead into his chin. Thomas swore loudly. The sudden sound nearly made him fall on his butt, and his heart accelerated to the speed of a jackhammer.

“No,” she shouted at The Car, surprising him further. “No, bad car! Bad. Don’t do that. You don’t even know him yet.”

Thomas held onto his aching jaw and started laughing as she shouted. She gesticulated more the more annoyed she was, he noticed. Right now, she waved her arms like nobody’s business. The Car seemed to follow her with its headlights somehow.

“And that’s just not good behaviour, at all! You have no say in who I do and do not do anything with at all. Now. I’m going to kiss this guy, and you’re not going to do a thing about it, capisce?”

The Car blinked its headlights once. Thomas stopped laughing.

She kissed him.

\---

Thomas felt almost lightheaded, walking back to the Rainbow Basher. In fact, it took him until after he was on the road to remember that he needed to call Maria before she magically heard the news from somewhere else. He knew she would manage that somehow, and he knew she would get pissed off if she heard it from anyone but him.

She picked up the phone at the second ring.

_“Thomas!”_ she said. _“Talk to me, dude. How did the latest disaster go?”_

“Wow,” he answered. “I’m flattered by your faith in me. Really.”

_“Hah, yeah right. Are you telling me it wasn’t a disaster?”_

“Let me put it like this.” He tried and failed to keep the smile out of his voice. “We’re getting a new player next poker night.”

Maria went quiet on the other side.

_“…no way,”_ she said. _“Are you telling me…?”_

“I have a girlfriend!”

_“No. Way. You’re kidding. Wait, this is that blonde we met at that pit stop that time, right? The cute one with the crazy car?”_

“I’m not kidding! And yes, she is. And yes, she really did say yes.”

For some reason, Maria’s predictable reaction solidified the idea in his own mind. He grinned like a maniac.

_“…you’re not kidding. Holy shit. Hey, guys!”_ she suddenly shouted. _“Look out for flying pigs! Thomas Strange got a girlfriend!”_

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in,” he laughed, as he heard the disbelieving voices of his other friends pipe up from the background. Flying pigs be damned, he _did_ have a girlfriend.

He was already looking forward to seeing her again.

\---

Mid-afternoon that Wednesday, Thomas hesitated outside the door of _Les Ciseaux._ In the ten minutes since he got there, one person had gone in and two had come out, and they all looked decidedly more well-off and fashion-conscious than he had ever felt.

Elisha had insisted he let her cut his hair, and he had no reason to complain. He needed a haircut, and it seemed more important to her than it did to him. He was having second thoughts now. And third.

If she had worked at a normal, every-day place, it would have been no trouble, but this was the kind of place you went for your wedding preparations. It was about as far from his scene as he could get.

He checked her text messages again, for the zillionth time.

_[got u an a.ment for 4.30 am_ _wednesday_ _:)_ _]_

_[just tell the lady i set it up xoxo]_

Despite her creative contraction of ‘appointment’, the message was clear enough. He took a deep breath and walked through the door.

The door gave a small pling as he entered, and the sound instantly attracted the attention of the woman behind the counter.

“Hello,” she smiled at him. “Do you have an appointment?”

He nodded and walked up to her, “Yeah, um, Elisha said she set something up for me?”

“Did she, now,” the woman muttered, and checked her computer. Whatever it was she found there, she got an odd look on her face. She looked back at him with furrowed brows. “You’re Thomas, then?”

He nodded, and she got up and looked around a corner.

“Elisha?” she said, “Why’ve you set up an appointment for this guy?”

Three seconds later, Elisha looked around the corner.

“Because he’s my boyfriend,” she said.

“Since when did you have a boyfriend?”

“Since the weekend. I’ll tell you later.”

The woman looked like she wanted to argue further, but Elisha ignored her and waved at Thomas to follow her.

She sat him down in a chair and draped a cape over him with the efficiency of someone who has done this a million times before. Then she got a good look at him.

“Doesn’t look like I’ll have to wash it, at least. Did you wash your hair before you came here?”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said, and at her questioning expression, he added, “minor lab mishap. There was blood _everywhere_.”

Buckets of pre-prepared sacrificial blood, that was. He had forgotten that this particular demon liked to blow up his offerings instead of just disappearing with them quietly as most of them did. It had taken hours to get it all off the ceiling, and he had just had to throw away the clothes. Tyrone laughed his ass off about it.

“Um,” Elisha said.

“It’s really not as bad as it sounds, I swear,” he said. He tried not to swear under his breath. It would be just like him to scare her off less than a week after they started dating.

Luckily, she just smiled and went back to his hair. In the mirror, the woman at the counter gave him a worried look. Elisha grabbed the scissors.

“So how do you like your hair?” she asked.

“As long as it’s out of my eyes, I don’t really care,” he said. “Go nuts, I guess.”

She chuckled and started cutting, scissors moving like an automatic clipper in her hand.

“Nothing too complicated, then. Just your basic ‘short and easily maintainable’?”

“Sounds good to me,” he said.

The next quarter-hour or so passed by without much talk, just the relaxing snipping of hair, interrupted now and then as she asked for his opinion on something or other. The woman at the counter passed by behind them four times, and she kept sending Thomas dirty glances even when sitting still.

“I don’t think that woman likes me very much,” he said.

Elisha paused her cutting for a second to look behind her. The woman hurriedly looked away.

“What, Sylvi?” she asked. “I noticed that. Do you two know each other?”

Thomas took another look at the woman whose name was apparently Sylvi, just to make sure.

“Never met her before in my life,” he said.

Elisha furrowed her brows. “That’s odd,” she said. “She usually never acts like this. Did you insult her on your way in or anything?”

“I don’t think so…” At least he drew a blank when he tried thinking back at it. “Maybe she’s just annoyed you forgot to tell her you’re seeing someone?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Either way it doesn’t matter. I’ll talk to her later. I was thinking about Sunday. We’re still planning to go out?”

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “You’re sure you’re not free on Saturday, though?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’m sure. This is a really busy time of the year for us. I have to expect working some weekends.”

She was certainly not lying to him. His view was limited, since he had to hold his head still, but from what he could see, most of the chairs in the salon were filled, even this close to closing time. He had to wonder how she had gotten an appointment for him so quickly.

“Fair enough,” he said. “There’s not that much to do out on Sundays, but if the weather’s good, I could show you around town a little? I mean, you mentioned you haven’t been here very long.”

“I think I would really like that,” she said.

\---

She put the scissors down.

“So, what do you think?” she asked.

Thomas turned his head to the side, trying to get a good look at his new cut from every angle. She held up a mirror to help him out.

“That… actually looks really great,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “You sound surprised.”

He laughed, and ran his hand through his hair as she unclipped the cape.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “I just honestly didn’t know that my hair could look this good. I never doubted you.”

He meant it, too. She could tell. She got the impression it would never even occur to him to lie about something like that just to spare her feelings. It was surprisingly refreshing.

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek before he got up.

“So, I guess I’ll see you on Sunday?” he said as she entered her employee discount into the machine.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said.

She handed him the machine, he paid his bill, and then he hesitated.

She smiled a little wider and gave him a look. She could guess what he was thinking. He was nervous about a lot of things, tended to fidget and hesitate before he did anything around her. She used to find people like that annoying, but for whatever reason all it hit her as now was adorable.

She nodded at him to get closer, and he leaned over the desk and kissed her.

His cheeks were red when they parted, and instead of saying goodbye, he just wiggled his fingers before he left.

She buried her face in her hands at the desk and tried not to squee. Gosh, he was so sweet. What was the word again? Adorkable. He might explode if she said it to his face, but he was.

“Elisha?”

Sylvi’s urgent voice pulled her out of her musings. The woman looked worried to the point of actual fear, and Elisha remembered that she was supposed to talk to her.

“When did you meet this guy?” Sylvi asked, almost demanded.

“Last week, after work, but we’ve met once before that too, why?”

Sylvi walked over and pulled Elisha into a standing position. “Look,” she said. “That man is dangerous, okay? You need to stay away from him.”

Elisha pushed off the hands still holding onto her, annoyed now. “What do you mean, dangerous?”

“I mean, do you even know what he _does_?”

Elisha blinked. “Sure? He’s a doctorate student.”

“He’s a _demonologist_.”

She said it the same way one might say ‘gang member’. She lowered her voice at the word as if she was scared just saying it would make a demon appear in the room. Elisha was confused. Did it really mean something so bad to people?

“Yes?” she said. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Elisha!” She whispered now, loud, insistent, almost panicky whispering. “You can’t trust people like that. He works with _demons_ for god’s sake. You can never know what he’s up to when you’re not around. He’s probably planning something horrible for you.”

\---

In the parking lot behind the salon, Thomas looked at his parking space, looked back towards the front of the building, looked back to the empty spot the Rainbow Basher had previously been parked in, looked up at the sky as if asking the universe _why him_ , buried his face in his hands, and heaved a massive sigh.

God.

Dammit.

\---

“Sylvi, calm down. No, he’s not. How do you even know this about him?”

Sylvi took a deep breath and slowed down a little, but sounded, if anything, even more desperate.

“He went out on a date with my sister once, before either of us knew what he did. Look, I know demons, okay? Our neighbour summoned one a few years ago. I had to listen to the damned screams for hours.”

“That sounds horrible,” Elisha said. “But did Thomas ever actually do anything to you?”

“Of course not! Melissa stayed way clear of him after that, and she told me about him so I could do the same. _Listen_ , okay? You can’t trust him, no matter how nice he seems. He’s a freaking cultist.”

“What? No he’s not,” Elisha cut her off. “He studies at a public university, honestly. I don’t think they tend to off people there. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m not about to murder my significant other anytime soon. I don’t think it’s good for your social life.”

Elisha froze up at the words, tension shooting through her body like an electric shock. Luckily, Sylvi’s jump at the voice was bad enough that no one noticed that reaction.

Thomas let the door fall shut with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, you were talking about me, right?”

“Thomas,” Elisha said, tension melting away as quickly as it came. “Didn’t you leave?”

“Yeah, about that,” he said, rubbing his neck. “Um, my car’s gone, can you drive me home?”

She blinked twice, and then she laughed. “It really does that, then? Of course I can. Just sit down here and wait and I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”

Sylvi put a hand on her shoulder. “Elisha…”

“No,” brushing her friend’s hand off once again, Elisha put her foot down. “No, this conversation is over. Now, I’ve got cleaning up to do, and then I’m going, with my boyfriend, and no one is going to get hurt. I don’t want to hear any more of this.”

Then she stomped away to finish up her tasks, leaving Thomas to wait while Sylvi resolutely tidied up the front desk without once taking her eyes off him.

\---

_Empty parking spaces._

Elisha’s grip on her purse was a little tighter than usual, as was the pressure around her chest. Her thoughts swirled uncomfortably fast as they walked out to The Car. Thomas gave her a worried look.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She looked up at him with a start. “Hm? Oh, yeah. I’m just a little tired.”

“Right.”

They got into The Car and she started up the engine. Then it took them a minute to get used to the noise before they could speak again.

“So you’re not worried about what she said, are you?” Thomas asked.

“Not really. I don’t think you’re a cultist.”

He laughed, and the sound of that helped unwind her mind a little.

“No I am not. Man, I hear a lot of people saying we’re dangerous, or unethical, or just blasphemous, but I haven’t heard cultist since… huh, not since that one, really awkward date, I think.”

“With Melissa?”

He stared at her. “Okay, how did you know that?”

Elisha smiled. “Because she’s Sylvi’s sister.”

“Oh,” he said, and then he leaned back against the seat. “That explains a lot.”

Thomas’ apartment complex was easy enough to find, placed as it was beside one of the ugliest fountains Elisha had ever seen. She stopped The Car and he got out, only to hesitate in the door.

“Hey, so,” he said. “Do… you want to come up? I can make you dinner?”

Dinner sounded amazing right now.

She said as much.

She parked a little more properly, and then he led the way up the stairs.

The first thing she saw once he let her in the door was a huge poster on the opposite wall. With the colour scheme and lighting in the picture, she assumed it was for a metal band, until she recognized the logo across the bottom as the title of a somewhat well-known series of strategy games.

“I’ll go start something up. You just… make yourself at home, I guess,” Thomas said.

She nodded, and he walked somewhere further into the apartment, leaving her to look around on her own.

The place was all right, slightly messy, big enough for one person to live comfortably, with an old, subdued wallpaper and a view through the windows that could barely be called a view. A college diploma hung prominently above the couch, and the rest of the walls were lined with bookshelves and posters. Aside from one of them, which proclaimed in big letters, ‘Keep Calm and Summon a Demon’, they were mostly movie posters and, she suspected, more video game related things.

A row of small figures on the closest bookshelf caught her attention. They were remarkably delicate, even the largest ones only a few inches tall, and most of them smaller than one, and when she looked closer she thought they might have been hand painted. She had absolutely no idea what they were for.

Aside from the figurines, the bookshelves were mostly filled with, well, books. Some of the titles she recognized, but for the most part, they were new to her. There were rows and rows of books and series she never knew existed.

Overall, the sense of the apartment was something new. There were papers and various items spread around the room, a single apple lay abandoned in a bowl at the table, and the TV remote was missing two buttons. It looked lived in, but to her, it was all new.

She recognized the pattern, of course. She had exes who collected sports posters the same way he collected movie ones, and she recognized a hobby when she saw it, even if it happened to be reading books in paper form, but the content of it was new. He filled his life with different things than anyone else she knew.

It was all very Thomas, she decided. His apartment and his things all felt exactly like him. It was weird, and different, but in a friendly kind of way. She felt welcome here, and yet she felt like, if she needed to, she could leave at any time.

_The lock on his door always sounded so final to her, as if by passing the threshold she lost her chance to go back…_

He had a shelf of movies too, she noticed. Several of them matched posters on the walls, and again, many were unfamiliar to her. The Space Exploder Team series was there as well. Both the two previous Team movies and, it seemed, every single tie-in, spin-off, and character prequel there was.

She had just picked up the first of them to have a closer look when Thomas came out from the kitchen.

“Do you have- oh, you found those.”

She looked up at him and put the movie back on the shelf. “You have a hard copy of every single one,” she said.

He rubbed his neck and looked away. “Yeeeeah,” he said, dragging out the syllable. “I’m… kind of a big nerd. Sorry.”

She smiled. “It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t mind. And I guess now we know what to do if it rains on Sunday.”

He stared at her for three seconds straight before he answered. “…you know, I was just thinking that.”

“It’s settled, then,” she laughed. “What was it you wanted to ask?”

“Wanted to… Oh, right. Do you have any allergies?”

“No, why?”

“I was just wondering what to make for dinner.”

He walked back into the kitchen with a smile, and she followed him. Then she stood by to watch as he got out ingredients and started working, chatting all the while.

It was a nice, effortless kind of chatting. It let her sit around and relax without thinking too hard about what she said, and watching him work was nice too. He moved around the kitchen with a measured efficiency she had honestly not expected. It took only a little while before the smell of cooking filled the room.

“You’re pretty good at this,” she said.

He smiled and looked away for a second to hide his flushing cheeks.

“Well, you know,” he said. “My friends seem to think my place is our de-facto meeting spot, so I’ve kind of had to learn how not to give people food poisoning at least.”

“Your friends sound a little rude,” she said.

“It’s not that bad,” he said. “I did eventually get them to pay for the food. And yeah, Brad can get a little rude at times, but I think he’s mostly oblivious. Maria probably does it on purpose, but she’s _Maria_. Anything else would be weird.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re friends with girls?”

He froze for a moment and then started spluttering. “Uh, no. I mean yes, but just that one. Unless you count Alice but we honestly don’t meet that often or anything, and it’s not like I’d ever think about Maria like _that_ , and that’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

She managed to keep up a blank look for several seconds before she cracked up. Once he realized she was messing with him, he gave her a dry look.

“No,” she said. “It won’t be. As long as you don’t mind me talking to guys sometimes, I won’t mind you talking to girls.”

“Good by me,” he said. “I trust you.”

_“Don’t you trust me?”_

_“Of course I trust you, baby, I just don’t like you talking to other guys, is all.”_

“Elisha? Are you sure you’re okay?”

She shook her head momentarily to clear it

“Yeah, yes I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just really tired.”

“Yeah? Because you’ve kind of been spacing out. You can go lay down on the couch if you want.”

She shook her head again. “No, I’m fine. I like talking to you.”

He still looked worried, but he smiled at the words and dropped the issue, and she went back to ignoring the memories bubbling up from the darkest reaches of her mind. It worked, as long as she could talk to Thomas.

After a while, he finished making dinner, and they sat down to eat. She asked him about the figurines on the shelf, which led into a lengthy explanation of one of the nerdiest board games she had ever heard of. She tuned out his words after only a minute or so, but a part of her wanted to sit there and watch him be excited about things forever.

Eventually, she had to go home. He saw her off at the door.

“You’re sure you’re fine driving home? You still look tired.”

“I’m fine, Thomas,” she said. “Either way, The Car won’t crash.”

“Right, yeah…” He still worried about her. It was sweet. “So, goodnight, then.”

“Good night.”

“I love you.”

She paused with her mouth open and blinked in surprise. She had not expected him to say it first, and he did look embarrassed about it. Then she smiled.

“I love you too.”

And then she closed the door.

\---

The roads were never empty here, even at this time of night, yet she felt very alone driving home.

The silence that followed The Car’s engine shutting down was too loud. She was tempted to turn it back on just to drown out her thoughts.

_“You can’t trust him, no matter how nice he seems.”_

She all but ran up to her apartment, hoping to outrun the voices mixing with her own in her mind. The words were vague and the voices changed owners. Changed from people she knew, to people who were supposed to be long gone from her life.

_“I love you, (Elisha. I love you so much, you know that?)”_

She slammed the door harder than she should have. The sound paused her swirling memories only for a second.

_Her car was gone when she left work that day. Gone off on its own, she knew, to-_

This was stupid. This was- she was over this. It was in the past, she left, it was over.

She never even got in trouble for it.

_His hands used to be gentle in hers, gentle sliding over her back, caressing her skin. Always so gentle. Almost always._

It was so late. She had better go to sleep already.

She changed out of her clothes and brushed her teeth methodically, her mind being elsewhere.

_God, she had loved him, hadn’t she? She loved him so much, for so long. She wanted to be with him. She was so happy with-_

She sat at the edge of the bed. Her perfect nails made indents in the palms of her hands.

_God, she was scared of him. It took her so long to admit it, but she was. When did she start flinching whenever he made quick movements?_

Her hands came up to clutch at her head, trying to force her mind closed, to make it all go away. She breathed heavily.

_“I’m not about to murder my significant other-”_

“I didn’t have a fucking choice.”

The words sounded too weak, as if her voice was too small to fight what it was trying to fight.

Why- why this, why now? She didn’t want to deal with this.

Her next breath was almost a sob. The pressure around her chest was wound too tight to breathe.

She felt herself starting to shake, and repeated her words in a futile attempt at making them sound more real.

“I didn’t have a fucking choice.”


	3. Gain more than you ever asked for

It did rain that Sunday.

Grey clouds hung heavy with water when Thomas got up in the morning, and by the time he had finished eating breakfast, the first few drops had already hit the ground. The weather forecast predicted no change in the downpour, and so he got his phone out and texted his girlfriend.

_[Doesn’t seem like we should go outside today.]_

The answering buzz came within two minutes.

 _[aw thats too bad]_ she wrote. _[then lets do movies_ _:)_ _xoxo]_

He still had a hard time believing that she had suggested the exact thing he had wanted to ask her on their first date. Not that anyone else believed it either. Brad thought he was joking when Thomas told him the day before.

 _[Yeah. Do you want me to pick you up or are you driving over here?]_ he asked.

Her next text came a little later than her first ones.

_[dont bother ill drive xoxo]_

Alright then. He would just… hang around and wait until she showed up. Great.

Five minutes later, he was still looking at their texting conversation. The contrast between his and her texts was incredible. Maybe he should stop texting in full sentences? It did look a little awkward next to her disregard for punctuation.

Maybe it would help his obsessive triple-checking for typos before every time he hit ‘send’ too.

He doubted he would ever be able to end his texts with xoxo, though, no matter how cute it was when she did it. He would feel like he was faking an accent. Badly.

He groaned, and put his phone down. This was dumb. She did like him, really. Being nervous and fidgeting over everything was not likely to do anything good. He should just relax.

...

The apartment could do with a bit of tidying.

\---

Twenty minutes later, he had found the last of the abandoned candy wrappers under the couch, gone through a vacuuming fit due to the other things he found under the couch, attempted to sort his various papers into slightly neater stacks, and straightened up his collection of DD&mD miniatures. Because, well, she did compliment him on his hand-painting job on them last time she was there.

Then the deafening roar of her car reached his ears, and he double-checked that he had enough to eat for the both of them before he rushed to the window to look for her. He wondered if she had gotten in trouble for disturbance of the peace yet, but he was personally grateful for the warning.

The Car rounded a corner further down the street and parked itself neatly in a spot just below his window. He watched as Elisha came out and walked up to the stairs, quickly to get out of the rain, and then he ran to the door to let her in.

He stood in the door waiting for her as she came up the stairs.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. “How have you been doing?”

“Good. I’m fine. Everything’s fine, you? You didn’t get too wet on your way in?”

“I’m good,” she said as she slipped her shoes off at the door. “It wasn’t that bad. You’ve cleaned up here.”

Ah, she noticed.

“Yeah, well,” he said, rubbing his neck. “I had some friends over yesterday and there was kind of a mess, and I figured I would try not to look like a complete slob when you came over, you know?”

She smiled. “I appreciate it. Now let’s watch some movies.”

“Right,” he said. Then he led her over to the couch and asked, “Do you want me to pop some popcorn before we set it up?”

“I’d love popcorn,” she said.

He made popcorn. Then he turned the first movie on and sat down beside her on the couch.

The opening sequence started with a wide shot of space, panning around to zoom in on a not quite realistic looking planet. Thomas let the familiar sounds wash over him without really focusing on them. Elisha sat so close he could probably put an arm around her shoulders if he wanted to.

He did kind of want to.

He made a short, aborted movement before he realized he was still too awkward to pull that off, and then he looked at the screen and pretended nothing had happened.

The title card came and went before he dared another look at her. She looked better than she had, last time they met. She had looked almost sick, or like she was worried about something bad. He wondered if he should ask her about it, but no, she looked fine now, and there was no reason to ruin the movie for her with weird questions.

He sighed, and tried to focus on the movie instead.

It was a good movie, really. Sure, he could admit that it had its faults, but it was light-hearted, bright, and honestly fun. It stood in stark contrast to some earlier instalments in the series, which sometimes tended towards the darker side of things. This one leaned more on humour than emotional distress, and the line-up of star actors did not exactly hurt either.

They finished their second movie for the day, and he was fighting with the third bag of popcorn when the doorbell rang.

Elisha took one look at him and said, “I’ll get it.”

He heard the sound of her footsteps over the floor, and then the door opening, and then an annoyingly familiar voice started talking.

“Hey, dude, you haven’t seen my… You’re not Thomas.”

It was all Thomas could do not to smash the bag of popcorn in his face as he facepalmed. What was Brad even doing here?

“No,” Elisha answered. “I’m not.”

“Huh, but I’m sure I got the right apartment…”

Thomas gave the popcorn bag up as a lost cause and walked around to the door.

“You did,” he said. “I have to ask why, though.”

“Thomas!” Brad said from the door. “Thank god, I was sure I’d made some stupid mistake. Why is there a beautiful girl in your apartment?”

“Because she’s my girlfriend?”

Brad stared at him, open-mouthed, then he stared at Elisha, then he looked back and forth a few times in confusion before he finally said, “I thought you were joking.”

Elisha broke out laughing. Thomas facepalmed again.

“You really have no faith in me at all, do you?”

“Look, no offence, but your dating history is kind of one disaster after another. Anyways, introduce me, won’t you?”

“Alright then,” Thomas said. “Elisha, this is Brad, my friend, for lack of a better word.”

“Hey!”

“And Brad, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Ah, right,” he said, and gave an unrepentant grin. “I think I forgot my phone here yesterday. You haven’t seen it, have you?”

One of the things he had found under the couch suddenly made a lot more sense.

He rolled his eyes and waved towards the living room. “I put it on the table. Come on. I’m sorry about this,” he said to Elisha.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I wanted to meet your friends anyways.”

“There it was,” Brad said, as he picked up his phone from the table. “Awesome. Alright, I guess I should go now.”

“Yes,” Thomas agreed.

“Right. Okay, going.” He passed by them again on his way to the door, and turned towards Elisha. “You be nice to my friend here, okay? Because he really doesn’t have any experience with anything and he’s probably a hopeless date, so just cut him some slack, take charge if you need to. Unless you want to break up with him, which is also perfectly acceptable and no one would blame you or even think it was weird-”

“Okay!” Thomas cut him off, and physically pushed him towards the door. “You’ve said enough. Don’t you have somewhere to be or anything? I think maybe you should go be there instead.”

Brad caught himself on the doorframe before Thomas could push him all the way out.

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” he said. “Just, seriously dude, can I talk to you for a sec?”

Thomas looked at Elisha, who just smiled, thoroughly amused.

“Two minutes,” he said, and followed Brad out the door. “Alright,” he said after closing the door. “What did you want?”

Brad drew a long breath and folded his arms with a concerned look on his face. “Dude, I’m sorry,” he said. “She’s way too pretty for you.”

Thomas grinned and rubbed his neck. “Yeah, I- I know. I guess I’m just lucky? We kind of… bonded over our cars. There aren’t that many people who get what that’s like.”

Brad studied him closely. “No, that can’t be it.” He shook his head. “It’s still too good to be true. There has to be some catch.”

“A catch? Like what?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Could be anything. Maybe she’s just playing around, like she’s two-timing you or something, or she’s planning to rob you or scam you or whatever. She might be in a cult for all you know.”

“I really don’t think so.”

“And even if she isn’t,” Brad continued as if he had never been interrupted. “Even if she is miraculously exactly what she looks like, sooner or later you’re going to have to tell her about Tyrone.”

Thomas was quiet for a while.

“I- I know,” he said eventually. “You really think it’s going to be that bad, though? She’s taken everything really well this far, even me talking about work.”

“Okay, that’s definitely a point in the ‘she’s in a cult’ bucket.”

“I still don’t think she is.”

“Thomas, you’re not exactly the best judge of character.”

Thomas opened his mouth to argue, and then thought better of it.

“Point,” he said, “but neither are you.”

“I’m just saying,” Brad said. “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

Thomas sighed and shrugged. He made a good point. “I guess Friday will be interesting, then,” he said.

“I’ll be happy to stand on the sidelines and watch,” Brad said.

“Now I think I should get back to my date.”

“You do that,” Brad said, and started walking back down the stairs. “Don’t join any cults.”

“I’m not gonna join a cult!” Thomas said after him, and then he facepalmed again and went back inside.

“Did he want anything important?” Elisha said.

Thomas paused and looked at her, sitting on the couch eating popcorn. She sat with her legs curled up beside her and a hand on her ever-present purse. She did not look like someone who was planning something horrible, but then again, what did a person like that even look like. He liked her quite a lot, he realized. The last thing he wanted to do was to scare her off, but he also had no idea how to stop that from happening.

“No,” he said. “Not really. Do you want to watch another movie?”

\---

Friday morning arrived.

As usual, Tyrone had decided to show up in Thomas’ kitchen in time for breakfast. At this point, Thomas just had it noted down as unavoidable, and the company was nice, anyways. Well, usually. Today, he was a little too distracted to appreciate it.

“You’re unusually quiet today,” Tyrone said.

“Hm?” Thomas looked up from his toast. “Oh,” he said. “I’m just thinking about tonight.”

“Poker night?”

“Mhm.”

Tyrone smiled. “Worried about bringing your girlfriend over to meet your friends?”

“Yeah, well,” Thomas shrugged. “You’re not exactly the easiest people to get used to, and I honestly don’t know how to break, well, you to her, but I don’t want to go around hiding anything from her either, and I don’t know how she’ll take any of it, you know?”

This time, it was Tyrone’s turn to answer with nothing but a hum and a slightly distant look.

Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Tyrone,” he said. “What do you know?”

“Huh? Oh, lots of things,” Tyrone answered. “You’re going to have to narrow it down.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “About Elisha in particular, since she _was_ what we were talking about.”

Tyrone broke into that annoyingly mischievous grin of his and fired off a tirade. “Still lots of things. Where do you want to start? Favourite colour of nail polish? Early childhood? I could give you her entire dating history for the right price.”

“Whoa okay, stop,” Thomas said, and held his hands up. “What the f- okay, one, I might not be a paragon of virtue or anything, but I’m pretty sure paying a demon to figure things out about my girlfriend without her knowing is wrong. And it’s not a good basis for a relationship either. I’d probably deserve losing her if I started doing shit like that.”

Tyrone fell into a pout, but Thomas kept going.

“And two, did you actively look into her? Because that’s not okay, Tyrone.”

“Of course I did,” Tyrone said. “You’re my friend. Of course I’m gonna make sure whoever you’re dating isn’t going to hurt you somehow.”

Thomas sighed and rubbed his temples. That was actually a little sweet, in a very disturbing, Tyrone kind of way. “You’re never like this with Brad’s girlfriends,” he said.

“’Course not,” Tyrone said. “Brad never holds down a girlfriend for more than a few months at most, and it’s not like he takes long to get over any of them. You’re different.”

“Because I’m a hopeless date, you mean?”

“Partially,” he conceded, “but partially because it just means more to you. Look, I don’t want you to be hurt, is all.”

Thomas sighed again. “Thank you, but that doesn’t make it okay. I’ll get hurt if you scare her off too, you know?”

Tyrone shrugged and looked away.

Thomas finished his toast, more worried now than he had been when he started it. “Just try to go easy on her tonight, okay?”

“Can’t promise anything.”

“Tyrone…”

“Hey,” Tyrone said. “You should get going. You have to be at the university in fifteen minutes.”

Thomas looked at the clock, swore, and ran out the door, trying not to think too hard about his chances of still being in a relationship by midnight.

\---

The roar of The Car once again resounded up Moss Street before Elisha parked. She stayed sitting for a little while before she got out, bracing herself. Then she sighed and walked up to the stairs.

This was silly. They were just going to play card games. What did she have to worry about? If she was lucky, she would get answers to some questions, and if she was not, the worst that could happen was that she would lose at poker. She would probably have fun, even.

She was met at the top of the stairs by a very enthusiastic woman.

“Wow! That was even louder than I remembered it,” she said, ending in a long whistle.

Elisha smiled, but the woman reached out a hand and kept talking before she could say anything.

“I’m Maria, by the way, and it’ll be really nice to have you around. You know, if you do stick around. Not that these guys aren’t good friends or anything, but I wouldn’t mind a girl to talk to every now and then. Anyways, let’s get you introduced.”

Maria practically dragged her by the hand into the apartment, and Elisha had to laugh.

“It’s nice to meet you, Maria,” she said.

Maria laughed with her. “You too. You’re Elisha, right? I’ve heard so much about you. You’re all Thomas has been talking about for the last two weeks.”

“I haven’t been that bad,” Thomas said, meeting them there.

Maria rolled her eyes. “Sure you haven’t.”

“You usually ask about it!”

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t be talking about her anyways.”

Elisha shook her head and walked up to give Thomas a quick kiss on the lips, effectively stopping the banter.

“Introductions?” she said.

“Yeah, sure,” Thomas answered, while Maria snickered in the background.

They walked out to meet the two people currently occupying the living room.

“So you’ve already met Brad,” Thomas said.

Brad waved from the couch.

“And this is Eddy.”

Eddy stood up and held out a hand. “Hey,” he said. “It’s good to meet you.”

“And you,” she said, and shook his hand.

Elisha smiled. At least most of Thomas’ friends accepted having her around. They seemed like a tight-knit group, too. Thinking back, she thought these were the exact same people she met at the pit stop that one time. Well, aside from one.

Maria noticed it too.

“So, is Tyrone going to be late, or what?”

“He might be,” Thomas said. “But he said he’d try to get here on time. We can just set up while we wait for him.”

Setting up took almost no time at all. They pulled out a table and a few chairs so everyone could sit comfortably, got out a few decks of cards and piled the table with snacks. The door opened just as they finished fetching the last of the gummi bears.

“Did I miss anything?” Tyrone asked as he walked into the apartment.

“Yeah,” Maria said. “We decided to give away all your favourite snacks and play for sugar-free cookies instead.”

He rolled his eyes and ignored her. Instead, he walked over to Elisha and put his hand out. “You’re looking better than last time we met,” he said.

“Er, thank you,” she said. “I mean, I hope so. I had been driving for ten hours at the time. It’s… nice to meet you again.”

He grinned widely. “Absolutely,” he said. He then shook her hand, and threw an arm out for her to sit down at the table. “I hope we’ll get to know each other well. Now,” he walked over and sat down directly opposite her, “let’s play.”

\---

Tyrone was acting weirder than usual.

This happened every once in a while. There would be days when he was especially sarcastic, or quiet and brooding, or prone to hugs, and Thomas had learned to roll with it for the most part, the same way he rolled with his car sporadically disappearing on him or suddenly having to clean up ten gallons of blood. These things just happened when you invited demons into your life, and there was very little anyone could do about it.

Now though, right now, he really wished Tyrone could have picked a better day to go all overly friendly, creepy grin on them.

Luckily, he forgot most of those thoughts once they started playing.

Poker games were always interesting, one way or another. None of them had perfect poker faces, but they were all good enough to at least play interestingly. Thomas and Eddy were both reasonably terrible liars. Brad was all right, aside from a few obvious tells once you got to know him, Maria could cover anything up with nonsense and enthusiasm, and Tyrone was inscrutable unless he was distracted. At least he almost never used his omniscience to cheat, partially, he claimed, because it would take the fun out of the game, and partially because it would take the fun out of cheating in more mundane ways.

The first draw went by quickly, with everyone aside from Maria and Eddy folding within the first two rounds, ending with her flush beating his three of a kind. The second draw had a bit more action, Brad lost half his pile of snacks on a bad hand, but Elisha still folded in the first round.

“No good cards?” Thomas asked her over the top of his own single pair.

“No, not yet,” she said. “I’ll get it on the next one.”

She did, apparently. After three rounds on the third draw, she and Tyrone were the only ones left not to have folded. Thomas had no idea which one had the higher hand.

Tyrone’s poker face was as good as ever, and most of what anyone could figure out was that he acted like he had high cards, and Elisha? None of them had seen Elisha play before, but she obviously knew what she was doing. If she had any tells, they were far from obvious, and her face was carefully blank.

The two players just sat looking at each other for a while, and then Tyrone broke into a slow smile. Thomas recognized that smile. It was the one he wore every time he stopped bothering with strategy and decided to go straight for psyching out his opponent. The room was dead silent. Thomas was a second away from just telling them to call already when Tyrone sat up a little straighter and rearranged his cards, adopted a veneer of nonchalance.

“So,” he said, “what happened to Charlie, anyways.”

The effect was instantaneous. Elisha froze up, and lost any semblance of a poker face. Before she had even begun to settle into wide-eyed shock, her jaw clenched and her hands curled into fists, only barely not destroying the cards completely. Her voice when she spoke next was cold as ice, vibrating from a supressed tone of anger that showed itself in the way her ears pulled back and her eyes narrowed.

“Car accident,” she said.

Maria glanced behind her towards the windows, where somewhere below, Elisha’s Car stood parked. Beside him, Brad muttered, “Wait, what?” and Thomas paused in confusion. He wanted to say something, wanted to stop this somehow, because whatever it was that was going on here, it was not good, and the tension in the air was thick enough that he could taste it, but his voice could not get past his throat.

Tyrone smirked, and Elisha shot back her own question, in defiance and anger as much as any genuine wish to know, “How old _are_ you?”

“That’s a rude thing to ask, don’t you think?”

He was enjoying this. It was so easy to tell. The light, mocking smile, the condescending tone, the relaxed way he held himself, but Elisha, ramrod straight and drawn taut as a piano wire, was too upset to notice.

“You said you knew my car’s owners,” she said, “and that was a thousand years ago. I _know_ you’re not twenty.”

“Seems you found an answer on your own, then. Say, it was an odd accident, wouldn’t you say?” he said, effortlessly switching the tracks back again. “Miles from where he should have been, was run over several times, and his girlfriend’s car went missing the same day, I think. Your car.”

The pieces fell into place easily enough at the words, and Thomas had no idea what to think. He was sure Tyrone was telling the truth, or some version of it at least. He sometimes claimed straight up lying was a cheap shortcut, but he was also just not that good at it. Demons in general were not too good at lying, honestly. It came with being bound by their own words so easily. The problem was figuring out what that truth meant.

Her voice was still calm, in the same way a balloon is solid a second before it explodes. Her hands forced her cards flat against the table now.

“What _are_ you?” she said. “How do you know this?”

“I know lots of things,” he said, in that same flippant tone he had used with Thomas that morning. “You didn’t answer my question, though. Then again, you don’t really need to. You did skip town pretty quickly after that, didn’t you?”

Elisha was shaking now, shaking bad, and not, Thomas realized, only from anger. The anger itself was more like a brittle shell, trying to hide what was inside from breaking out, and now it was breaking.

She stood up, face flushed, eyes shining, letting the chair crash to the floor, and her lips curled back in preparation for a word, and right then, Thomas could move again.

He slammed his hands into the table and shouted, “TIMEOUT!”

All eyes around the table turned to him. Elisha flinched away and from the corner of his eye he saw her almost going at him, but she paused once she realized that he was looking at Tyrone, not her.

“Okay, okay,” he said, adjusting his volume to a more normal level. “Tyrone, that’s crossing the line, that’s _not okay_. That’s exactly what I told you _not_ to do.”

Tyrone looked like he had hit him. In a few seconds, he went from smug manipulator to a child who does not understand why he is being scolded. It was a little harder than usual to sympathise.

“Elisha,” he said, turning to her and trying to keep his voice a little softer. He got up and gestured towards the kitchen. “Come here.”

She had her arms pulled in close to her body, and her eyes still shone with too much emotion and she looked scared, looking at him, but she followed him into the kitchen and he closed the door behind them.

He sighed and leaned against the door, then he realized what that looked like and tried to move away from it. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She opened her mouth to answer, but closed it quickly, pulled her shoulders further up, swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut. Eventually she just shook her head.

He nodded, and then he sat down on the floor beside the door. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “Tyrone gets carried away sometimes, forgets that people like their heads private. He’s usually a lot better about it.”

She drew a long and shaky breath. “S- so about-” she swallowed once and tried again. “’bout the thing…”

He held a hand up. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what happened, but I don’t actually think you’re going to hurt me, and it’s not my place to dig around. You want to tell me, that’s alright, but if you don’t, that’s okay too.”

She drew another long breath and looked down at him. She shook like a leaf in the wind, and tears were rolling down her cheeks now.

“And if you need a hug,” he said, holding out his arms, “I’m right here.”

She laughed once. It was the kind of wet, sobbing laughter that always comes with a lot of tears and pain, but it was much better than nothing.

For the next two minutes, they just stayed like that. He sat on the floor keeping her company, and she stood fidgeting slightly with her shoulders pulled up, crying more or less quietly. And then she walked over and sat down with him, burying her face in his shirt and crying in earnest, and he put his arms around her to comfort.

Eventually, she started breathing easier. Her tears dried out, or at least the ones on her face did, his shirt was still soaked, and she stopped shaking. She stayed where she was, though, and he hardly minded.

“Feeling better?” he said.

She nodded against his chest, and then she pulled back to better look at him. “You really don’t mind?” she asked.

He looked at her, stroked a hand along the side of her head and wiped a stray tear away with his thumb. “Really,” he said. “This is hardly the first time someone I know has turned out to have a deep dark secret, and honestly, in comparison, yours is pretty mild.”

She raised an amused eyebrow.

“Then again, to be fair,” he said, “the other one was _Tyrone_ , so…”

She laughed at that, and dropped her head back onto his chest, and he stroked her hair a little more.

After a little while, there was a knock on the door.

“Who’s there?” Thomas asked.

“Er, it’s me,” Tyrone’s voice came from the other side. “Can I come in?”

Thomas looked down at Elisha, who thought it over for a few seconds and then shrugged.

The door opened slowly, Tyrone walked through, and then he closed the door again, sat down opposite them, and handed Elisha a large chocolate bar.

She looked at it, looked at him, furrowed her brows and then took it carefully, as if she was expecting it to explode. “What?” she said.

He shrugged. “Well, you won.”

“What?”

“The draw. Poker game. You won it.”

She started laughing in disbelief. That was probably the last thing she had been thinking about. But she also unwrapped the chocolate.

“Did you look at my cards?” she asked, and he shrugged again.

“Didn’t have to,” he said. “My hand was shit.”

Thomas facepalmed. Elisha adopted this slightly resigned facial expression.

“You absolute dickwad,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, “I know. I can be. I’m sorry, okay? I have a lot of excuses, but none of them are really all that good, so just… I’ll make it up to you?”

“Maria chewed you out pretty bad, didn’t she?” Thomas asked.

Tyrone folded his legs and looked away for a second. “Yeah, well…”

Elisha bit into the chocolate bar. “And how,” she said, “were you planning to make it up to me?”

“Oh right,” he said, “how about this. For the rest of the night I’ll answer any question you can come up with honestly and comprehensively, okay?”

There was a moment of silence as Tyrone waited, Thomas contemplated how ridiculously good a deal that was, and Elisha considered it.

“Okay,” she said. “First thing first. What the hell are you?”

Tyrone grinned. “Oh, that’s a good one.”

\---

She took it surprisingly well, all things considered, or she might just have been emotionally exhausted. After he explained the whole actually-Alcor-the-fucking-Dreambender thing, they got up from the kitchen floor, because while the hug was nice, the floor was hard and starting to hurt, and they got on the couch in the living room with the rest of them, and she asked about The Car. Because that was how she had even ended up there to begin with, and she figured that if she was owed anything at all, it was that.

The stories of that naturally led into stories of Tyrone’s part terrifying, part hilarious, part plain bizarre somewhat-relatives David and Sarah, and a few even stranger stories after that.

No one much felt like playing poker anymore, so they loaded all the snacks up on the table and found a stupid action movie to put on.

As the movie loaded, Elisha told them about Charlie, and they listened.

“I really, really didn’t have a choice,” she said. “But I suppose I should’ve gotten away earlier.

“But it’s… it’s not that easy, always. I loved him, you see. I loved him so much, and he loved me, and we thought that was all we needed, and it was fine, for a while.

“He got… weird, after a while. He didn’t want me to talk to other guys, ever. And I figured, that made sense, lots of guys are like that, but I can’t really do my job without talking to half my customers, so I’d do it anyways, and he’s find out, and he’d…

“It really wasn’t that bad, not at the beginning, and it was so slow, and I really think he did love me, in a way. I mean, I was always gonna move, eventually. He knew that, but I think he thought that if he just loved me _enough_ , I’d stay with him, y’know? And he always got really bad every time I mentioned it after a while, so I just… stopped, and I think he thought he’d won somehow, because he started talking about me moving in with him, but I was too scared of him at the time to ever want that, and…

“There’s probably a million other ways I could’ve gotten out. I could’ve just run, or gotten help from someone, or anything. Just… at the time I couldn’t… think.”

Several pairs of arms reached for her, building supports, giving comfort and assurance that no one blamed her, that no one would ever blame her, and piece by piece, slowly, they loosened the pressure around her chest.

“But I really did love him,” she said, and they could say nothing to that.

\---

Two months later.

\---

Elisha woke up with an arm around her, and for one wild second she was terrified. Terrified that the last year had somehow been a dream, that she was trapped, that _he_ was still around, that she was back in the one place she never ever wanted to go again- but then she woke up all the way and saw the mop of newly cut hair attached to her boyfriend, and she calmed down.

She was sleeping on his bed because it had gotten too late for her to drive home the night before and because his couch was really bad for sleeping on. She suggested sleeping together because she knew that he knew and respected that she was not ready to get that close to anyone, and might not be for a while. He knew that, and he accepted it without question, and that was why she could sleep with his arm around her, sleep close enough that anything could happen, even though they were both wearing pyjamas. Because she trusted him.

She really did trust him, more than she thought she had ever trusted anyone else in her life, and that simple fact reminded her every day that choices which might seem weird at first sometimes turned out to be the best ones.

She smiled, reached up a hand to stroke his hair, and was ready to go to sleep like that when a sound from the apartment made her realize something had in fact woken her up.

As quiet as she could, she crawled out from under Thomas’ arm and out of the bed. She opened her purse and pulled out her ever-present bottle of Mace, and then she tiptoed out into the apartment.

The lights were on in the kitchen and she could hear clear sounds of someone walking around in there. The door was open, so she could easily sneak a peek into the room without making a sound.

The door to the fridge was also open. From her vantage point, someone could easily be hiding behind it.

She snuck up to the fridge as stealthily as she could, Mace ready in her hand, and she was nearly there when a voice behind her suddenly said, “Oh, hey Elisha. Didn’t know you were here.”

\---

Thomas awoke to the sound of his girlfriend shrieking, and then hysterical laughter.

He was not as concerned with stealth as he got up.

When he got to the kitchen, he was met by the sight of Elisha standing and staring at, of course, Tyrone, who leaned most of his weight on the counter, because he was laughing his ass off.

“Uh,” Thomas said. “What happened here?”

“He freaked the hell out of me,” Elisha said.

“Yup,” Tyrone agreed. “And then she Maced me. It was great.”

Thomas joined in on the staring for a little bit.

“You’re pretty freaky about pain, you know that?”

Tyrone just kept laughing. Thomas noticed the state of the kitchen.

“Dude, were you raiding my fridge?”

“Yup.”

“Then you deserve to get Maced. Come on, it’s the middle of the night. Get your butt out of here.”

“Yeah, yeah, see you tomorrow,” Tyrone said, and disappeared.

Thomas took a second to pull a hand over his face before he turned around and closed all the cabinets again.

“Does that happen often?” Elisha asked, still staring, now at the spray bottle in her right hand.

“Every once in a while,” Thomas answered. “I’m afraid you can’t really hurt him with one of those, though, no matter how much we would all want to.”

“No…” she said, and then she smirked. “Say, how hard do you think it’d be to get this sanctified?”

Thomas blinked, and then they both laughed at the prospect.

And then he kissed her, and she kissed him back.


End file.
